Friday, November 02, 2012

Massachusetts Candidates Differ Only Slightly on MidEast

While President Barack Obama and former Governor Mitt
Romney have dominated presidential election coverage, the Massachusetts
Senate race may be the second-most important race in the country. The
Senate elections are crucial for President Obama. A return of a
Democratic majority may unite the divided government he has had to work
with the past two years.

Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate
Elizabeth Warren has prided herself on going after Wall Street banks and
being “for the people.” The Democratic candidate, who enjoys a slight
lead over Republican Scott Brown, made a splash in the most recent
televised debate when she said, “I want to be blunt; we should not be
fighting about equal pay for equal work and access to birth control in
2012.”

When it comes to Israel, one could hope that Brown’s
Republican values of lower taxation and less government spending – or
Warren’s 99% values – would end our forced taxation by Israel. Sadly,
not only do both candidates support Israel unconditionally, but they
maintain a racist position encouraging and sponsoring the violent
policing of non-Jews in the region.

Brown brags that he supported the Senate’s resolution
which “reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself during Operation Cast
Lead.” He writes, “I also firmly support the security barrier erected
by Israel.” Brown states:

“I unequivocally support the recently executed
ten-year memorandum of understanding between the US and Israel which
will provide $30 billion in military aid to Israel until 2017. Since the
vast majority of that aid is spent on American products, it is good for
both American employment and the American economy.”

Aren’t Republicans supposed to support free
enterprise? Using taxpayer money to support specific businesses, most
likely Jewish or Zionist-owned corporations like Starbucks and Home
Depot to supply Israeli settlements and cities would certainly not help
the average American small business owner.

Warren is less clear on exactly how much of American
taxpayers’ money she is willing to fork over to Israel but makes it
clear that she will be spending US money to protect apartheid in the
Holy Land: “To me, it is a moral imperative to support and defend
Israel, and I am committed to ensuring its long-term security by
maintaining its qualitative military edge. Israel must be able to defend
itself from the serious threats it faces from terrorist organizations
to hostile states, including Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others…”

Warren claims that Massachusetts benefits from high
tech businesses owned by dual citizen Israelis. “There are approximately
100 companies in Massachusetts with Israeli founders or based on
Israeli technologies – creating $2.4 billion in value and thousands of
jobs for our economy.” However, Israeli companies, indirectly subsidized
by US taxpayers, suck money away from the very working class citizen
base that Warren appeals to. American high tech companies, which are not
Jewish-owned, have a harder time competing for contracts when the US
government practices such favoritism.

Scott Brown’s foreign policy statement relies heavily
on racist soundbites obviously borrowed from some unnamed “Talking
Points Memo,” even maligning the Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes.
Elizabeth Warren phrases her own foreign policy statement in a more
pleasantly ambiguous way but clearly accepts behavior that is violently
racist in favor of Jews against Arabs and Muslims, and appears to draw
from the same “Talking Points Memo.”

For example, regarding Palestine, Brown emphasizes
that his support for a two-state solution for peace is “premised on
security for Israel and is not imposed by outside parties,” while Warren
clarifies, “I do not believe that a lasting peace can be imposed from
the outside.” What does this mean, other than that Israel’s decision to
stop committing genocide against Palestinians must be purely voluntary?
That the US has an obligation to arm Israel but no other country or
group may arm Palestine? Both candidates clearly view Israel’s security
as more important than the security of the United States by keeping us
involved in this conflict.

Warren openly opposes the Palestinians’ application
for UN membership. She claims to believe in a two-state solution but
opposes the recognition of Palestine as a country. How can two countries
negotiate when only one country is recognized as a country? This is one
of many bizarre mental cliff leaps Warren’s political position takes.
Brown’s logic also ventures into bizarro-land as he sloppily copies
“Israel’s unconditional right to live in peace is equal to that of all
other nations of the world” from the same “Talking Points Memo” – as if
any other nation on earth enjoyed any “unconditional right to live in
peace!” The racist tyrade continues as Brown reiterates the age old
anti-Palestinian canard that there are no leaders to negotiate peace
with:

“I stand with Israel and the majority of leaders in
support of a two-sate solution… However, with the Palestinian leadership
now divided by a terrorist entity (Hamas) and the Palestinian
authority, we do not yet have the fundamental requirements in place to
begin negotiations… Until there is a non-terrorist entity on the other
side of the table, negotiations cannot start.”

Both Brown and Warren also oppose the non-existent
Iranian nuclear bomb threat. Warren supports economic sanctions against
Iran: “Like the President, I believe that the careless talk of rushing
to war is unhelpful, and, like the President, I believe the United
States must take the necessary steps to prevent Iran from acquiring a
nuclear weapon.” When a blogger recently mentioned to her that Iran is
not even working on a nuclear weapon according to US official sources,
Warren answered that she would have to “look into it.” Warren’s
ignorance and arrogance against Iran seems almost palatable compared to
the nearly psychotic ranting on Brown’s website:

“Iran, the brutal theocracy run by a cabal of mullahs
and President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, represents an existential threat to
Israel and a menace to United States interests. With visions of regional
domination and international troublemaking, Ahmedinejad has stated with
great clarity that the Holocaust did not occur and that Israel should
be ‘wiped off the map.’”

Not only does Scott support divestment from Iran but
he would make it illegal to do business with any country that does
business with Iran. He continues: “I also would work to restore funding
for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC ) which was
recently cut by the Obama administration and support continued
intelligence sharing by the Mossad and the CIA.”

Regarding both Massachusetts Senatorial candidates,
it would seem that they are largely struggling over who can agree with
the same positions more forcefully, except that Warren prefers to starve
Iranians rather than kill them with bombs, and that Scott seems to
enjoy personal ties with the Mossad.